Found in a Heartbeat
by BatKate
Summary: One-shot. Barbara is taken to the Watchtower after she's badly injured. When things take a turn, Bruce can only look on and worry about the future of his proteges.


_Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice._

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Somehow the Watchtower surveillance seems colder for the four heroes today. Green Arrow is standing beside Black Canary with his arm around her, Robin is sitting at the system's main desk (his face partially hidden behind his forearm on the dashboard) and Batman is behind them with his arms folded, but they're all looking at the monitor — the one for the med bay, where Martian Manhunter is treating Batgirl.

"This is all my fault," Tim says into his arm, "I was supposed to disarm the guy and I thought he only had a gun and then the psycho got out of my grasp and ran at Barbara and then I saw the knife and—"

"Kiddo," Ollie puts his hand on the boy's shoulder, "Don't do this to yourself."

Tim lifts up his head towards the archer. "But, it was my responsibility."

The boy's hands are still stained dark red from carrying his wounded teammate — Bruce isn't sure how severely she was injured, but the amount of blood loss scared him when she was brought in an hour ago and it scares him now.

"Tim, there's nothing you could have done," Dinah says.

Bruce doesn't add to Ollie and Dinah's sentiment and instead watches the security feed. His eyes narrow as he sees J'onn stop treating Barbara and instead sit by her side, holding her hand while she looks … upset? No — panicked.

A few minutes go by before Tim goes on, "I should have known better, I should have—"

"You should have gotten her here safe," Bruce says as he turns to his ward, "And you did. She's alive because you got her here, where she could get the best treatment as fast as possible."

"Really?"

"Really."

Tim tries to respond, but J'onn interrupts them.

"She is stable," the Martian says.

"Stable," Tim exhales and smiles for the first time tonight. "Stable is good." But J'onn doesn't reply, and the other three adults are all thinking the same thing.

"You're keeping something from us," Bruce says.

"Yeah, what Bats said," Ollie mutters.

"J'onn, what's wrong?" Dinah asks.

"She … she is recovering well from the attack," he replies, "It honestly looks worse than it is — her torso was only grazed, so no organs were damaged. Her arm wound is more severe, but it should heal without longterm complications and she has a strong heartbeat despite the loss of blood, which is very lucky considering her injuries. However …"

The other four tense up at the second pause.

"When I examined her, I found … _two_ heartbeats."

Dinah's jaw drops, Ollie mutters, "Oh crap," and Bruce just narrows his eyes. The three adults don't even remember Tim's in the room until he breaks the silence with:

"You mean like … a Time Lord?"

"TIM. OUT." Bruce only has to say it once — Tim backs out of the room ("I'll just … the kitchen."), leaving the adults to comprehend the situation. Bruce turns to J'onn.

"How far along is she?"

"Perhaps five weeks? She hadn't even realized that her menstruation-"

"_That's_ what you're choosing to focus on?" Dinah sputters out, "How about how this happened!"

"Well," Ollie begins, "When a boy and a girl love each other very—" He winces as his girlfriend elbows him hard in the gut. "Sorry, bad joke. Just trying to diffuse the tension."

Dinah continues, "What I want to know is, who's the fa—"

_"Recognize: Nightwing B01"_

"Where's Barbara?!" Dick Grayson rushes out of the Bludhaven zeta tube and the look on J'onn's face says everything.

"Oh," Ollie and Dinah say in a combined whisper.

"Is she alright? I heard —"

"Barbara's fine, Nightwing," J'onn walks in between him and the others, "She's stable."

"Where _is_ she?" he repeats.

"She's in the med bay. She needs her rest, but she did ask for y—"

Dick sprints down the hallway.

"You _really_ think it's a good idea to send him in blind?" Ollie asks.

"I offered to tell him for her," J'onn says, "But Barbara was adamant that she do it herself — and alone."

"I just can't believe no one knew they've been …" Dinah trails off.

Another awkward silence fills the room. Ollie coughs. "Welp, I'm going to go find Robin. I'm pretty sure he's figured out what 'two heartbeats' means by now. Honey?" the archer says as nudges his girlfriend.

After the couple leaves the room, the Martian and the Bat look back to the med bay. Dick is sitting at a sleeping Barb's side, holding her limp hand. Bruce can't bring himself to turn on the audio, but he finds himself reading the 18 year-old's lips: *I'm so sorry. I wasn't there. I'm so sorry.*

After a while, J'onn cuts through the silence. "Try not to be upset with them — Barbara says they were careful. She was almost furious about it, actually … that they always used protection and this still happened."

Silence.

"What are you going to do, Bruce?"

Bruce purses his lips. "They're adults … and they've more than earned my confidence. They'll make the choice of what to do. Does she —" Bruce doesn't know how to say it, "— Did she mention what she wanted to do?"

The Martian holds his answer for a moment before simply saying, "I think it has much to do with what Nightwing has to say." He pauses before adding, "You knew about them, didn't you?"

"I had my suspicions," Bruce says without taking his eyes off the screens, "They weren't exactly subtle the last few months. And Dick's been so … happy."

Maybe Bruce should walk away from the screen. Maybe he should take Dick out of the bay and tell him what's going on, if only to take the burden away from Barbara. But instead the Bat waits. When Barbara's eyes open up a half an hour later, Dick gives her a broad, tired smile. Either he doesn't remember the security system is there or he just doesn't care, because he brings her fingers to his lips in a way that betrays their intimacy. They talk for a minute more before Barbara looks away. While the camera angle obscures her mouth, Bruce sees Dick's response is a concerned (borderline terrified) *What's wrong? What is it?* and when she doesn't say anything back, he kneels right next to her, their faces just inches apart. *Babs, you can tell me. Whatever it is, you can tell me*.

Who knows how she phrased it, how she puts it, but Bruce knows she's said it because Dick's face goes from dread to absolute shock. Whatever he guessed she was hiding, this wasn't it. Bruce can see Barbara has tears in her eyes as she waits for any kind of response, but then the words sink in and Dick … smiles. Despite his earlier gentleness with her, Dick embraces her recklessly, kissing her lips and then just kissing every inch of her face with quick pecks. Eventually he puts his hands on her cheek and his thumbs wipe away the tears just under her eyes. Barbara laughs out a comment Bruce can't see, but Dick moves his hand to her stomach and replies *Well, you better get used to it, because you're stuck with me now.*

"He loves her," J'onn says to Bruce after a minute.

"Yes," he replies, "Very much."

"Bruce!" Dick runs towards him. Bruce is quick to turn off the surveillance screens and J'onn has managed to phase out of the room.

"How is she doing?"

"Good! I mean, she's …" he trails off.

"Dick," Bruce says, "I know."

"… Oh," he exhales.

"Are you OK?"

Dick thinks about it for a second, "Yeah, I am. I mean, it's terrifying and completely unexpected and ideally could have happened in a few years, but … yeah, I'm OK," he laughs, "Jesus, I'm going to be a _dad_." He's beaming and Bruce finds himself smiling, too.

"Congratulations." He's never been that good at these kind of things, but the sincerity comes through well enough. Dick closes the gap between them and pulls Bruce in with a big hug.

"Thank you," he whispers after a few seconds. They let go. "I'm going to go find Tim and tell him the good news."

He dashes towards the hallway and for a moment, Bruce can see that little boy from the circus. But he's not a boy anymore — he's a man and despite everything they've been through in the last decade, Bruce Wayne has never been quite as proud of his son as he is right now.

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_This was actually a prompt from Tumblr: "Babs finds out she's pregnant with Dick's baby". I'm putting this at the end so it didn't spoiler the story._


End file.
